The Power of Unscripted Stories

[Intro] Welcome to Brainforest Café with Dennis McKenna. [00:00:21] Dennis McKenna: Lucy Walker is an Emmy winning twice Oscar nominated director renowned for creating riveting character driven nonfiction. Her films have won over 100 awards including two at Sundance and two at Berlin and include Mountain Queen, the Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, Of Night and Light: The Story of Ibogaine, Bring Your Own Brigade, the Lion's Mouth Opens, the Crash Reel, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, Waste Land, Countdown to Zero, Blindsight and Devil's Playground. For Netflix, she directed/executive produced How to Change Your Mind, executive produced Ram Dass, Going Home and produced Why did you Kill me? She was born in London and graduated from Oxford University before winning a Fulbright Scholarship to attend NYU's graduate film program where she supported herself with a successful career as a DJ. Lucy Walker, welcome to the Brainforest Café. [00:01:35] Lucy Walker: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. [00:01:38] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, I'm very happy to have you. I can't tell you how excited I've been about this and particularly after I've looked at some of your work. A small fraction. You've been incredibly prolific and that says something, you know, because, and the films that you have made are very eclectic. They cover a whole spectrum and that's very interesting. You cannot be slotted into any category other than that. You had said, you mentioned in our pre conversation that it's, it's observational documentaries. I guess that's a way to characterize it. And I think the film the Mountain Queen is a good example of that. I can't tell you how blown away I am by that film. I watched it three times and every time it doesn't get boring. It's just so beautiful. And so this person, luckily is so inspiring, you know, and, and I like this documentary so much because it's not just about a woman climbing a mountain, you know, I mean, that would be interesting enough, but it's about a woman climbing a mountain and fulfilling her dreams to be a mountain climber and living life at the same time. A difficult life, you know, this partner of hers who turned out to be, you know, kind of a sociopath and not, not a good alliance. And then her two kids who are just shiny and sunny. What wonderful names. And they're just great too, you know, and it's just, it moved my heart in so many ways. And is that your latest work? Is that the latest release? [00:03:38] Lucy Walker: Yeah, that just came out on Netflix and it's been incredible to be sharing that with people. And it's about this incredible woman, Lhakpa you mentioned, and her wonderful two teenage daughters as well, a big part of the story. And they've been really flourishing, you know, since we made the movie. And they've kind of been through this really period of struggle. And so the film kind of catches Lhakpa sort of setting off on this mission to reinspire her family. You know, she devoted her whole life to inspiring women and girls and showing the world what women and girls were capable of. But at the beginning of the movie, you know, her own daughters are barely speaking to her and she's really having a tough time. And she's washing dishes in Whole Foods in Connecticut. And it seems a little harebrained that this middle aged sort of woman could just go summit Mount Everest. But that's what she decides she needs to do. And we follow her off on this odyssey and through this whole journey. I don't want to give too much away because I hope people will track it down on Netflix. But it's been just this beautiful privilege of watching her story unfold and then also continuing now through sharing the movie where family kind of continues to kind of flourish. And I love making these films about people that inspire me. You know, I think life is tough and I like these people that kind of light up the screen and you've never seen before. And she's like, you know, carrying the dirty dishes at the back of a Whole Foods in Connecticut. Like, you know, life just wouldn't give her a second look, really. And yet I love the fact that she is, you know, just another example of how awesome humans are and how if we open our eyes, there's just so much magnificence in the world and in our fellow creatures that sometimes in our hustle we kind of a bit blinded to. And I just love, kind of, I just love the fact that now people see her and she's also hilarious and, and just has this. Has had this absolutely unique life, you know, growing up as a Sherpa in Nepal, not allowed to go to school, she had cut off her hair, and pretended to be a boy to escape an arranged marriage. I mean, she is epic. And now the world gets a chance to see her. And that is, you know, just incredible. So thank you. [00:06:16] Dennis McKenna: I mean, and you, you have the privilege, really the opportunity to really bring her story to the world. And I think her story is so inspiring, not just for women, but just for anyone who faces adversity and who, like, will not be stopped. You know, they have their, their aspiration, their goal, and nothing will stop them. And I'm so happy to hear you say that her family life has improved since the film came out. I think the recognition that she's getting, you know, will hopefully her daughters are proud of her, you know, and it appeared at the end of the film that they really did get it. I am no film critic, Lucy, you know, but to me this is Oscar worthy stuff and I hope that you'll get a nomination for it. [00:07:13] Lucy Walker: Tell them! [00:07:16] Dennis McKenna: Tell them! I'll tell the world in this podcast. But you know, my word means nothing. But I would certainly, if there's anybody that would listen, we need lots more of this stuff. This kind of work is just amazing. And you know, it's just the latest stage in a pretty impressive track record. Your work has been so eclectic and yet so interesting. You know, I haven't obviously reviewed all your films, but I did look at trailers and so on from some of them. The Mountain Queen was not the first mountain film, mountain climbing film that you made. It was Blindside, which was much earlier. [00:08:04] Lucy Walker: 20 years ago. My first Everest movie. That's right. And that's how I first heard about Lhakpa,I was actually on Everest in 2004. I spent 6 months in Tibet in 2004 making a film about blind people climbing Everest. And that time we climbed from the Tibet side for Mountain Queen, we climbed from the Nepal side, which is Lhakpa of home country's Nepal. But in, in 2004, I had this incredible life experience of spending all this time in Tibet. And as you may know, Tibet has also changed so much in 20 years. And I think that's the sort of privilege of my career is that I've had just this unbelievable fortune to really be in different places in the world and not just sort of as a tourist, but really getting to know people and sort of bringing my craft of filmmaking and trying to make the best film I can that conveys, you know, often incredible people in a really fascinating place going through quite a riveting, you know, story of some kind. That seems to be a bit of a formula for me that has yielded these films that people actually want to watch, which is not always, you know, easy when you're making documentaries. [00:09:23] Dennis McKenna: Right. The idea of blind people summoning Everest, I mean, that's an oxymoron if there ever was one. [00:09:31] Lucy Walker: You know, I know I learned so much. And like you, perhaps I had this first impression like, wait, aren't you climbing for the views? Because it feels terrible. So if you're blind, why would you climb? And actually I really turned around on that and I learned so much from these blind people, I learned Eric Weinmeier, who's the first blind man to summit Mount Everest, in fact, I think still the only one. He was really doing it to show the world what blind people were capable of. And I, and I kind of, you know, I think there's different reasons to climb Mount Everest, but I think that's a good one. You know, I don't necessarily agree with all the tourists jumping up there, you know what I mean? But Lhakpa was really, you know, she's a Tibetan Buddhist and this is her God, mountain goddess of the universe, you know, and she has a very relationship with the mountain. And she's also showing the world what women are capable of. She grew up in Nepal and she was the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest. And she really needed to show Nepali people what women were capable of because there was so much gender inequality in that culture in particular. So she's got a good reason to climb. And so did Eric. And in fact, when he climbed Everest, there was a blind school in Tibet, the first and only blind school in Tibet. And actually Tibet has more blind people than anywhere in the whole world, actually, because for various reasons, and when he climbed the blind school kids and, and, and the founder of the school was so grateful to him because they really showed people in Tibet that blind people were not useless. And, and it really got people in Tibet's attention and they were so grateful, they wrote to him and said, wow, you know, thank you. Life is really, really tough for blind people in Tibet, actually, because he's an American. And he thought, wow, if I'm a privileged Western dude, what if I went back and we climbed together and we showed them that it's not just, it's not just the, you know, resourced white guy that can climb. Actually all blind people are really, really capable. And so he goes back and we filmed this expedition where the blind German founder of the school, the blind American mountain climber, and six blind Tibetan teenagers all climb up a peak of Everest called Lhakpa. It's actually kind of next to Everest at a mountain called Lhakpa or a peak of Everest called Lhakpa, coincidentally because Lhakpa is the name of the woman the later Everest films about. And then we set off on this expedition and what's interesting about that film, actually the expedition goes a bit wrong and it all kind of goes pear shaped. And it gets quite interesting. It's not as simple as like a bunch of people stand on top of the mountain. Happily, it actually got quite nuanced. And, and anyway, so that was an amazing story as well. But these people are truly like heroes to me, you know, and that's partly why, I think, why the films look so eclectic. It's because I think they're all about either subjects or people that I think are really, really important that I'm really, really interested in. Interested enough to sort of drop everything and work really, really hard. And I don't think anyone's made a film that's really, you know, I don't think they've been widely recognized enough yet, you know, So I think it's really exciting to tell that story because the audience just doesn't know it yet. And then you can bring all your film tricks to make it as, you know, well made and engrossing as possible. [00:12:59] Dennis McKenna: When you were doing this film with Lhakpa. [00:13:04] Lucy Walker: Yeah. [00:13:06] Dennis McKenna: Or the blind side, Were you actually up on the mountain filming? Did you have to summit Everest too? [00:13:13] Lucy Walker: Not to the top. I went all the way the first time, the second time. This time, I take full responsibility for hiring and supervising the team that did. But I didn't even try. And here's why. I think that, you know, films are incredibly collaborative. And the great thing about it is that, you know, everyone plays their part on the team a little bit like mountain climbing. What's really fun about Mountain Queen, apart from everything, is that unlike, I think, almost every other mountain movie, all the people on screen are Sherpa. So Lhakpa is a Sherpa. Her family she climbs with are all Sherpas. You know, you might call them climbing Sherpas because Sherpa is kind of a job. It's a last name, and it's a clan. Everyone who's a Sherpa is called last name Sherpa. And their first name is just the day of the week that they're born. So it's like Lhakpa means Wednesday. So it's like Wednesday Sherpa, you know, and her relative. So the Sherpa, the guides she was climbing with, who were also her relatives, also called Sherpa, the Sherpa. And also the job title is Sherpa. Anyway, we gave them all good cameras and really trained them and worked with them. Like, what do you see? Here's what we like. Here's what works for our kind of style of filmmaking, but really encouraged and empowered them to kind of use their own eyes and sense of story. And if they knew what we were doing, and wouldn't it be wonderful to see what they see for a change? Because centering Sherman people and their point of view was super exciting. And then we had one high altitude cinematographer who's amazing cinematographer called Matt Irving. And they all went off and we kind of worked together to really understand what we needed in advance. Because even when you're on the mountain, you can't necessarily, you kind of when you're climbing, you get strung out across the place. So even if you are up there, you're not necessarily like standing there with a really good idea, like next to the person with the camera at the time. You know, you're more likely to be thrown up in a frame and crying to be rescued. You know, especially if black focused. She climbs very fast. And on the south side of Everest, you go through this very dangerous patch called the ice fall. And you really don't want to be a slow boat around there. It can be really endangering people. And Lhakpa likes to climb fast. So I just knew that that was going to be a teamwork situation. And my job was to sort of put the whole story together and, and, and put the whole team together, but not. I did not need to actually be physically there. [00:15:51] Dennis McKenna: Well, I don't believe you. I mean, that's your executive producer. And working with these people with the camera. So you teach them those skills, their Sherpas. Right. So then they. [00:16:06] Lucy Walker: Yeah, they are pretty excited. Yeah. Because they're going to be, you know. [00:16:09] Dennis McKenna: The exception of Matt Irving. He was. [00:16:13] Lucy Walker: Yeah, exactly. But I kind of feel like the future is, you know, more Sherpa stars and more Sherpa camera cinematographers as well. Right. And Sherpa people don't just want to be Sherpa jobs. Right. And so I kind of think this whole sort of re-centering Sherpa people on their own mountain, I think was part of the joy of it. And some of the shots, like there's a shot of a Sherpa smoking outside the tent, you know, at like 21,000ft. You know, it's just, it's just funny and it's a great shot. And it's stuff like that that we don't normally see, you know, so it's really cool. [00:16:55] Dennis McKenna: The other thing I loved about the film, and maybe this is how you normally do it, but it was entirely in Lhakpa´s, because she was the narrator. There was nobody interviewing her. That was, that was also amazing. And she was insecure about her command of English, you know, but she was. It was good enough. And it was actually quite charming, you know, because you could understand her. You could understand what she was saying. And I love that she just narrated the whole thing. [00:17:31] Lucy Walker: You noticed that she uses a lot of nature and animals. You know, she grew up with. Without tv, she says, like nature was an animal channel. You know, she grew up without knowing that there were white people. The first white people that came into the village, everyone ran away. Her mother even broke her arm running away because they thought that they were yetis. [00:17:51] Dennis McKenna: They were yeti. [00:17:53] Lucy Walker: One of these strange creat creatures we. [00:17:54] Dennis McKenna: Haven't seen before as well. [00:17:57] Lucy Walker: Yeah, it's funny. So she grew up in this very remote area with, you know, this stunning, stunning part of the world in these incredible, very green and lush, but very high altitude and like, you know, all these like incredible creatures and nature. And she didn't. She's not literate. She never went to school and she still doesn't read or write. So when she learned English, she learned it in her very own way. And she's so, so smart. But not having had a, like, conventional English teacher or a conventional English book, she winds up really describing things. You know, she'll say, oh, I'm a dirty raccoon, you know, or, you know, my dad, you know, said that I'd. If an animal attacks, I'll fight back. So she. She kind of just. I just love how she's such a nature girl that she speaks. Always using sort of animals because that's how she still has that frame from her, you know, growing up in her. In her. In her valley. And I don't know, I just love. Yeah, I love the way she describes things, which is just really fresh. [00:19:12] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, yeah. Amazing. I mean, the way we met was through our mutual interest in psychedelics. And you've made several films either directly related to that. I mean, Michael Pollan series, which you. The executive director. [00:19:31] Lucy Walker: I was director as well as executive producer. [00:19:35] Dennis McKenna: Executive producer, yeah. [00:19:37] Lucy Walker: But I also discovered two different roles. But. Yeah, and we had an amazing team on that. I did a great deal of that. Yeah. [00:19:47] Dennis McKenna: Yeah. And it was a wonderful series. I thought it was very educational. It was a series for people that maybe are curious about this whole area, maybe not experienced personally. And I thought it was very well done. And the ibogaine movie, which I'd seen when we were at the retreat, and I did not rewatch the whole thing, but I watched significant sections of it yesterday just to refresh my memory. That's another masterpiece. [00:20:20] Lucy Walker: Thank you. But that one's not out yet, but I love that film. But keep going. [00:20:24] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, Well, I just thought that most people, it's like ibogaine. Whoever heard of ibogaine? Even the cognoscenti, you know, it's not the most well known psychedelic, but I thought that as an educational documentary, it had the human interest, it had the science. I thought it was just a perfect way to educate perhaps the unpersuaded, who might be FDA officials or people like that. If they can watch this film, then they can really place it into context. And of course, much of it is Howard Lotsof and story and he was definitely a pioneer for sure. But then at the first of the movie and at the last of the movie, you bring on this Stanford neuroscientist. His name is Nolan Williams, who is the next generation. I mean, Lotsof was just some hippie who took ibogaine and it turned out he didn't want to take heroin anymore. But then this guy's got all the qualifications, all the credentials and he really makes it clear that he thinks ibogaine is a unique substance. I mean, it is a general brain reset regulator. So in some sense it goes far beyond the so called conventional psychedelics like psilocybin, which, you know, not to degrade psilocybin. But it's clear that ibogaine, you know, could be a revolution for things as diverse as Parkinson's and traumatic brain injury. Addiction is only a part of this. It basically reconstructs the damaged brain, I guess is one way to put it. It reestablishes those pathways and those connections, which is something that we know that psychedelics do, but it seems to. So again, where will this be released? Where can people watch it? [00:22:49] Lucy Walker: We are working on it. We just, we're just finishing it up now. We kind of sort of almost finished it last year and did a sneak peek at the MAPS conference in Denver and also at Tribeca Festival, which was fantastic. And those were wonderful because also Norma Lotsof is still with us and she's incredible and we really wanted her to be celebrated and so that was wonderful. But actually we hadn't quite finished it and then Mountain Queen kind of kept me busy and we don't have that big of a team and stuff. So now we're just finishing it and we'll get it out in 2025 now and I'm really thrilled about it. The goal with making it was that when I first heard about ibogaine, I didn't know whether to believe it because it sounds like snake oil. You know, you take this mysterious substance from West Africa and it can interrupt opiate addiction, which sounds like that can't be right or we would have heard of it. And then, you know, and then you look it up and it's got these terrible risks. It, it is a little bit more risky than the classical psychedelics, you know, and there have been fatalities. And at this point you're thinking like, well, not only does it like sound like quackery, but it also sounds like downright fatal. You know, the upside, I mean, steer clear, you know. And as you know better than anyone, you know, it's been tough enough for these scientists to like heroically try to get hold of these miraculous molecules for really legitimate science and all the promise that they hold since Nixon clamped down in, you know, around 70 and let alone ibogaine, you know. And so I wanted to make something that actually kind of looked like, why would you. Like what is the, what is the potential here? Like, why is anyone even trying to get this through? And this incredible story I learned about, which was Howard, who had this first trip in 1962 in New York and noticed that his heroin addiction had vanished. And not only that, he'd sort of had a 180. And when he used to think of heroin as something that was soothing and what he needed, instead he suddenly saw it as death. And he really was aversive to it. And he wanted to choose all the life and healthy and positive loving things. And he was so struck by this that he sort of devoted his whole life and along with his incredible wife Norma, to try to get legitimate scientists to pay attention and the government to pay attention. He just knew this was an important discovery for humanity. And he was, I mean, he was the most tenacious. I think of him as a modern saint, honestly. And when I had this incredible privilege of just putting the whole story together and finding all the old clips, which is incredible, like an archeological dig. And even in the psychedelic world people haven't heard of them. You know, Howard and Norma Lotsof are not very well celebrated. It's a story that's not familiar to people. And I was just stunned when I sort of had this like editing room and like, you know, finding all these different clips from different places, putting it together and looking at the journey of his life and realizing that all this kind of lineage of clinics that were everything kind of can be traced back to that one night, one trip in 1962. And now, of course, this dream is kind of coming true. That Nolan Williams lab at Stanford just got $20 million from Sergey Brin. And there's also incredible research going on in Spain and Catalonia, in the UK, in Brazil. I mean, really robust trials. And I think we're going to really start to understand this, this molecule. And Gul Dolan, who I think is just a spectacular, you know, researcher in the psychedelic world, calls iboga, Ibogaine, the rockstar of the group of psychedelics because it seems to be the most potent and have the most potential for healing of perhaps all of them, albeit that it is a different risk profile and that we do need to figure out how to administer, administer it safely. And it's always about trying to caution people that it's not one to experiment with on your own. [00:27:23] Dennis McKenna: This is, this is not and never will be a recreational drug. I mean, this, this is serious. There are dangers. All medicines have a side effects, all medicines, but, you know, these are easily, easily compensated in the hands of the right kinds of clinicians. It's not that dangerous, you know, in the proper context and so on. But I think you're so. You know, it's wonderful that finally the funding is coming. People are looking at it seriously. What's unfortunate is that all of this could have been investigated 20 years ago or even 30 years ago. You know, the FDA was very dismissive of it. Deborah Mash did what she could, but she got approval to use it, but she couldn't get funding. So it's, it's a good example of the sort of two steps forward, two steps, you know, three steps forward, two steps backward kind of way that these drugs develop, especially if they don't come out of the usual pharma company clinical drug development channels. I mean, this was, it was a lot like LSD in a certain way. A mysterious medicine that came from a plant that had all these properties, all this history, all of that. And then finally the therapeutic, the properties of it are beginning to be recognized that never would have been if it hadn't been for Howard Lotsof or wouldn't have been in the same way. I mean, he was astute enough to realize that this, that the effect that it had. I mean, he didn't just dismiss it. He said, this is remarkable. I'm like a serious heroin addict. I don't have any cravings. What the hell. It's big news, you know, and he, and so then he discovered his life's, life's quest. And you know, and his wife has continued. It's a pity that Howard didn't live long enough to see all this begin to come to fruition. But he was definitely a pioneer and, and it's just, it's just a remarkable movie. It's kind of setting the tone for the future of neuroscience in some ways. [00:29:48] Lucy Walker: I'll wait to share it with the world because I'm just in love with the whole story. And it's so amazing. How often does a sort of citizen scientist, especially like a 19 year old junkie, you know, in the NY. How often does, you know, does this person actually have what now this Columbia professor is saying the most important molecule he's ever seen. What Nolan at Stanford is saying is that it's the most powerful medicine for the brain slash mind that he's, that has ever been seen. And, and all this potential I think is there. And I felt like making the film because I began it several years ago and during the course of it, you know, it's expanded from being really used by people struggling with substance use disorders to Navy SEALs who were suffering from substance use disorders, but also PTSD and stuff reporting that their PTSD was done. And another very astute observer was a doctor called Martin Polanco. And he noticed that this was happening and he started to theorize that actually it was doing more than just curing addiction. And so all these elite soldiers and people suffering from different conditions have been now experiencing it. And it turns out this interruption of opiate use disorder was actually just kind of like the beginning of its miraculous properties. [00:31:29] Dennis McKenna: Almost side effect in a certain. [00:31:31] Lucy Walker: Yeah, it's sort of like the little flag that showed us that something completely like that you couldn't do with a placebo is get out of a heroin addiction without cold turkey symptoms. Right. That's just unheard of. But actually that's sort of the beginning of where it might get interesting in, in terms of what's, in terms of, you know, stroke and you know, all kinds of brain and psychological things. And I'm so, I don't know, it feels like I have filmed the kind of discovery of antibiotics, you know, as I've been observing in the last few years and more people have sort of cottoned on. But what's also lovely is the work of those early pioneers, I mean you mentioned Deborah Mash, for example, and Howard, who died in 2010, really believing that, he had failed, he had failed in his life's mission of getting people to pay attention because they'd been shut down. But actually the clinics that they started to do the research projects when the funding, the government funding was shut down. The addicts that he treated set up their own clinics in different places where it wasn't legal. And the people they treated. And the people they treated it was kind of like a sort of family tree. You could trace it all the way back. But those clinics are now providing data back to scientists. And really. And that's where it kind of then again came back to the notice of incredible researchers. And so I think it's just a beautiful story of actually, even when you think that your work isn't going anywhere and it looks like it's all in vain, actually, the kind of roots might go underground a little bit, like the iboga shrub, perhaps. The roots may go underground for a while, but actually they are. You know, there's a great Pablo Neruda little poem that says, you can cut down all the flowers, but you can't hold back the spring. And I, you know, I feel like that about the psychedelic. [00:33:26] Dennis McKenna: That's necessary. Or in the case of ibogaine, that's a necessary thing. It had to go underground because the FDA was not receptive. But the people who were close to it understood the value, continued to work with it, and now it's reemerged, and it's reemerged in a context that is very much more appropriate because it does need to have a good clinical context. A lot of these ibogaine treatment centers in Mexico and other places, you know, most of them are run by good people with good intentions. Not all of them. You know, that's something that plagues all of these psychedelic research centers. Not everyone is a saint who's involved in this. But this, I mean, this, again, is another inspiring story. And I think that once ibogaine is available to people for therapy and is more established and accepted, your film is going to stand out as one of the landmarks, one of the events that really made this accessible to people, you know, and educated the public. And I'm not just flattering you. I really mean this. [00:34:45] Lucy Walker: Thank you, Thank you for, like, stating my mission and giving me hope that it's not in vain my own work, you know, because that is my goal. And I feel that's also why I really wanted to make how to change your mind. Because I've had this incredible fortune to have discovered psychedelic experience in my, you know, as a teenager and. And have been really just astounded by the benefits even when I was a teenager. And even though I didn't suffer from depression, you know, as a 16 year old, when I tried mushrooms, I said, wow, this is nature's antidepressant. I was 16 years old. This was before the literature on all that stuff. [00:35:31] Dennis McKenna: Right. [00:35:32] Lucy Walker: I just lifted and freshen my, freshen me up and just lifted me up and had me giggling and vibrant and sort of like my best self. And I thought, wow, that is not what I expected. And, I felt so lucky about that. And I felt in my lifetime, that story just. It was really important to me that people saw that, um, because the potential to help people, I think, is so enormous. And as someone who's dedicated my whole life to like learning how. You really apply all the craft to try to make these stories really, you know, watchable and interesting and powerful and clear and, And I thought, what stories that are more important than that could I, could I be telling? And I really passionately believe, and it's not an accident that I wound up directing, you know, how to change your mind. And also this, I really, I wanted to do them because I felt absolutely dedicated to those stories, you know, being communicated to the public in the most informative, accurate, but also inspiring way. Because it is, as, you know, it's taken some absolutely heroic efforts to overcome, you know, these, this, you know, prohibition sort of era that we're in with these medicines. [00:36:54] Dennis McKenna: Right, yeah. [00:36:56] Lucy Walker: And to really overcome all that fear and prejudice and tell these stories and discover that there's amazing stories that we don't know and that are so important. [00:37:13] Dennis McKenna: They need to be told. That's the thing. They need to be told. And you do that. You know, speaking of, you know, another kind of psychedelic related work that you've done, and maybe you've done more, but I think you. The short film about Ram Dass was also. I, when I first watched it, I didn't know you were the producer, but it was a really moving film. You know, a lot of us knew Ram Dass, Richard Alpert or whatever considered him a friend. And he was, you know, a figure in the psychedelic world. You know, an example of basically what psychedelics could do to help you become a better person. He was widely admired. So what was your role at that? Were you the executive producer? [00:38:08] Lucy Walker: I did not direct that one and I never liked executive produce. Executive produce means you're not sort of the parent, you're like the godparent or something. Right. And, and something like that, you're, you're, you're making it happen, but you're not the kind of direct, creative soul person kind of thing. And, I've never taken executive producer of credit on anything. And I wouldn't have taken it on that one except for the afterwards. The director said, like, basically forced me. And I look back and I thought, you know, actually I did, I did do it and so I took it. But normally, like a lot of people ask me to executive produce things that I don't direct. And I'm always like, oh, I'm too busy with my own things. I don't want to. I don't have the bandwidth to do a good job for anything else. I just so consume my. By my own projects. But in this case, I could not help it because I met this wonderful person. I was actually teaching at Esalen, I was showing my films at Esalen and there was a lovely sort of non filmmaker, middle aged guy who happened to have filmed an interview with Ram Dass and was asking me what to do with it. And I thought, like, wait, you have an interview with Ram Dass and yet you don't know what you're doing with it yet? Like, I just wanted to do anything I could to help because he seemed so fabulous and I'm, you know,. I mean, I just think, as you say, Richard Alpert, Ram Dass, you know, between the psychedelics and the spiritual sort of journey, I feel like those are my sort of twin, you know, tracks that my whole life has sort of run on. And the lights that I look at are the kind of, you know, American Buddhists and the psychedelic pioneers, you know, like you and your brother. And so it's just this whole sort of like a Ram Dass is sort of like, you know, just a legend in my, in my life. And so I just wanted to help the director and he already had his gorgeous creative plan, but he didn't know anyone in the industry, so I was able to just sort of help him with that. And then I help him sell it to Netflix and just sort of just be a support and advisor and then connect him with the industry so that it could come to Netflix and then to the world. And, it was just my enormous privilege. And I got to swim with Ram Dass in Maui and you know, got to attend and it was just sort of the most exquisite, you know, privilege again, like, how am I sometimes in my job? I just pinch myself and think, like, how is this another day at the office? You know, I'm swimming and singing with Ram Dass in the, you know, as he used to go for a weekly swim. Even after his stroke, you know, his team would wheel him down and take him for a swim in the beautiful Maui waters. And you just think, gosh, you know, this is a dream. And I, I just felt like I even met my guru. I never felt like I had a guru or was looking for a guru or would be kind of person who had a guru. But I met Ram Dass. I'm like, oh no, no, this is, this is my guru. And, and what a sparkle of a spirit he was, right? [00:41:26] Dennis McKenna: He was, he was a beautiful spirit. And it really brings it out, the fact that he had so many people who were willing to support him during his stroke, you know, and who didn't view it as a burden, but a blessing. So he was very lucky in that way. And a lot of it is because of who he is. Not only his fame, but just his actual personality, you know, his, his personality as a person. People love him, basically. He is beloved, I think that's the term, you know. So do you have any other psychedelic related films that you're hiding? Those are kind of the 3, right? The Michael Pollan, the Ibogaine film, the Ram Dass. [00:42:16] Lucy Walker: The thing I'm developing, which I don't normally talk about, but you're very special. Something I'm really interested in is interspecies communication and hum… [00:42:28] Dennis McKenna: Which film…? [00:42:29] Lucy Walker: I haven't made it yet. High. Fascinating. [00:42:30] Dennis McKenna: Oh, you haven't made it yet. [00:42:31] Lucy Walker: Oh, several other things up my sleeve. I mean, I think in terms of looking back, are any others of them psychedelic? No, not really. I mean, really. I think I'm always trying to sort of ask like, what's life about, how to live it. Whether it's a film about Amish teenagers or my film about like an artist and working in a garbage dump in Brazil with people that picks with the garbage for a living or. [00:43:01] Dennis McKenna: That also is an incredible and incredible piece of work. I mean, you cover such a spectrum of things and you seem to, you seem to have a knack for just finding these, you know, quirky stories basically that interesting people doing interesting things like the film about the garbage. Well, what was it called? I'm looking at the Waste land. [00:43:32] Lucy Walker: waste Land, about the garbage. [00:43:34] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, a wasteland. I mean, what an incredible film that was. [00:43:38] Lucy Walker: I love it. And I have a film about how Snowboarder with a Brain Injury, which sounds terrible but is absolutely spectacular because of the people in it. I had a film about cherry blossoms in Japan. [00:43:49] Dennis McKenna: And you had. You had something to do with a Buena Vista Social Club, which got a lot of attention when it came out. I love it. [00:44:01] Lucy Walker: I feel. I feel, as you must, you know, just a great sense of purpose about my work and a great joy in sort of. Yes, I'm sort of an artist in a way, because I'm doing this very creative thing, which is really, really like just. I just, you know, I can't stop, like, kind of trying to make it better, you know, so it's a very, like a flow activity, creative activity. But at the same time, you know, I hope that I feel really good about the stories I'm putting into the world. What's magical is when you allow an audience to see somebody or something that they didn't know about. My job is to open up this window that they can really meet this other person that they wouldn't meet in regular life or even, like, Lhakpa. If they did meet her in real life, they may not know. In fact, they certainly wouldn't know that she holds the record for most Everest summits. [00:45:11] Dennis McKenna: So this. This is really what I like about your work. I mean, you are a storyteller by nature. That's what film is. But you find these interesting people and situations, and then you tell their story or you let them tell your story. This is something I really admire about your approach. It's not about Lucy Walker interviewing someone. It's about Lucy Walker creating a space where people can tell their own stories. Actually, that's what comes out very much in the Mountain Queen and I assume, and many of the others. Occasionally there's a narrative element, like some in the Ibogaine movie. So, Lucy, you've been doing this for 20 years or more. [00:46:01] Lucy Walker: It's 30 now. I think it's 30 years, maybe. I mean, I went to book school really young and. And basically haven't done anything else apart from directing. And my first film came out in 2002. But I'd actually worked for quite some time sort of on that before and sort of building my craft up before. So it's been a while. I feel like I've just got started and there's so many stories, I mean, with within Psychedelics World, you know, and Ethnobotanical World. I mean, my gosh, where's the Schultes movie, right? Where's the Dennis movie? All the work that you're doing. I mean, there's some storytelling. I mean, all your incredible work that you're doing. I mean, I mean, where to begin, Right, Coca? I mean, this is an incredible other story. I mean, all your. I mean, what would you shine a light on if you had, you know, the spotlight? You know, I mean, there are so many things, right? I find it so just so relevant and so fascinating and so beautiful and don't you think, I mean, what have you. When you look at your, you know, world, don't you see all the stories? [00:47:23] Dennis McKenna: I see stories. I mean, people have approached us, my brother and myself, about making a movie about true hallucinations and they experimented at La Chorrera and all that stuff. And I don't. That's probably not going to happen. And I'm fine with that. I don't really want to make a movie about my psychosis when I was a 20 year old going to the Amazon without a clue. But you mentioned a minute ago a Schultes movie. A Schultes movie could be a fantastic movie. And you should think about that. In fact, Wade Davis, you know, has written the definitive book on Schultes, which is One River. [00:48:11] Lucy Walker: Oh, I'm like the biggest fan. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. [00:48:14] Dennis McKenna: I mean, I mean, it is a classic. You could make a movie about this if you're interested. I think that would be a great thing. [00:48:22] Lucy Walker: I agree. [00:48:24] Dennis McKenna: Put that in your back pocket. Let's talk to Wade and make it happen. I don't know how these things come together. You know the business much more than I do. We made this little 30 minute documentary called Biognosis about trying to restore this herbarium and the Iquitos and all that. And we made it and we were hoping, well, get it on Netflix. I don't know. Going from making the film to actually getting it to the world is tricky. I don't know how to do it. You've done this many times, so you know how to not only make the material, but get it to the world. [00:49:05] Lucy Walker: Every time I do it, by the way, I look back and I think, how did I thread that needle? You know, and it's sort of like even with Mountain Queen, I look back and I think, how did I pull that off? You know, it's never a given. It's really hard to find distribution and there's some great films like yours that aren't available on one of these big platforms and sort of this. It is a time in documentaries where actually the distribution isn't serving all these films. So I think that we're kind of in a little bit of a transition moment. And beautiful films like yours are stuck in that sort of pass in a way and unable to quite reach the audience that they really richly deserve. But no, it is a real miracle when, when, when they do get out. But I do, I think with, with the psychedelics and I think about, like, Michael Pollan's book, you know, and your books and, you know, you and your brother's work. I mean, just the ways in which, you know, your work has put these stories, you know, into the world. And even when there are so many, so much resistance in the world, you know, it, you know, the way you tell them and Michael Poland and everyone, the way these stories are told by you, you know. It becomes irrefutable and, and they become like, you know, just. And as a young person, I was growing up in London, you know, these were the things I read and thought, this is the most interesting and important thing. I mean, you know, even as a young person, I thought this is. This is just the most compelling thing. And I think even in the state the world's in now and the new moment, it doesn't seem any. Our connection with nature and these incredible plants and medicines and people around us and the indigenous knowledge keepers and all the spiritual, you know, leaders. I mean, these are the people, I think, that have this potential that I see to really lead us through these times. That hasn't changed in my lifetime. If anything, the need is only more clear right now. [00:51:53] Dennis McKenna: I'm very much on the same page with you that when I was younger, when I was your age, when you were a teenager, I was probably about the same age, maybe a little bit younger or older, whatever, but when I discovered psychedelics, it was like you. I realized this is not just some interesting thing. It is the most interesting thing in my life, you know, and that hasn't changed. And that was 60 years ago, roughly. So, you know, I'm still fascinated by it. I don't take psychedelics all the time anymore. I've been around beyond the chrysanthemum, as they say, enough times to know it. But I know how important this is in all, in many, many ways as a catalyst for evolution of human consciousness and tools for understanding human consciousness. And it is just, you know, it's big news, but it's been around so long that, you know, it's been pushed out of the, it's been sort of diminished, but it remains important, you know, in understanding who we are. And so forth. So of all the films that you've made, so many. Are there 2 or 3 that you feel are your top. Your most important work, or is that a fair question? [00:53:23] Lucy Walker: It's a little bit like asking me to pick my favorite child because. [00:53:29] Dennis McKenna: Right. [00:53:30] Lucy Walker: You know, even my film, Bring Your Own Brigade, which, like, I was capturing during the pandemic, which is not a good time for a movie to come out. And it's about wildfire. So it's very harrowing to make. It was actually very difficult to make. And I mean, there's not. There's nothing that wasn't a terrifically important step and has given me just the gifts of my life. Right. And has sort of just the flowers just keep sort of blooming from the seeds that were planted during those productions. But I suppose in a way, my films, Waste Land, about this collaboration in this garbage dump and the Crash Reel, just as a kind of film, I think. And Mountain Queen, this new one. I mean, I think those ones, in a way. The people in the mirror just really just light up the screen and the stories and really hold the audience. And so it's fun for me just watching an audience watch them because, you know, you can't hear a pin drop. And there's moments in them where, you know, I remember looking once at the biggest. There's a biggest movie theater in Europe is in Berlin, and we were screening the Berlin Film Festival, you know, and at one point I looked over in this moment in Waste Land and in the light of the gigantic largest screen in Europe, in the faces of the largest audience in Europe or whatever, everyone's faces were just wet with tears and it was reflecting. So I just saw this whole theater with these. Looking at this lovely, lovely Brazilian guy who's lived and worked in a garbage dump, picking stuff out of the garbage, taking plastics and recycling them by hand, completely kind of outcast, determined to sort of, as an environmental steward to sort of fight for environmental justice. And just this. So again, just this hidden hero, and he's just. His story is so moving that everyone in the audience is just. Their faces are all shining, every single one of them. And I just think, wow, that. That is a moment. So. So those films kind of stick out that sort of. And when you make a film like Mountain Queen, like, I didn't know what was going to happen. When I began the movie, to be honest, it looked like a little bit of a long shot, you know, that Lhakpa's crazy dream of going back to Everest was even feasible. I mean, she's a, you know, 50 year old woman in Connecticut and her daughters are just absolutely not in the mood. You know, and you know, and the things that happen. And then, you know, towards the end of the movie I was filming and I saw these couple of just precious moments where you know, like you just you glimpse kind of the machinery of life working. And I saw this couple of moments where her daughters, you know, just change their, like just, you could see them just change before your eyes. And who's been very traumatized by what they've been through as a family, looks in the mirror and she says, I see someone that could be somebody. And that is, you know, you just seen her whole development and you kind of capture these glimpses of how life sort of actually sort of works. And I'm just sort of fascinated by that. Kind of like, yeah, how, how does, how does life actually operate? And, and how do you capture those moments that really are meaningful? Like what are the significant moments in your life, you know, that have led to you, you know, the big, the big, you know, forces that drive your life. The big moments where you just became captivated by something that turned into your life's path, you know, and you can kind of glimpse these like moments in the path where someone, you know, goes this way, and then when they get knocked back or when they make this decision to take this wild chance and, and you don't know where it's going, but you want to sort of watch and find out and, the story goes on. And I think it's, it's, it's been incredible, in my lifetime that we now have these cameras and we now have this editing equipment so that you don't need a script and you don't need actors to make a good movie. You could actually kind of like it if you, you know, we now have these sort of more affordable cameras and we now have really like amazing editing systems that you can kind of like really precisely tune a lot of material and then find the story in it and build it up sort of like that. And, and I love that. I kind of love looking at life and sort of trying to think, well, how does it work and what is the way to live and what are the different stories? I absolutely. [00:58:45] Dennis McKenna: So I think maybe that's what distinguishes your approach or maybe others have that approach. But you mentioned you have the cameras, you have the equipment, but no script. No, it's all spontaneous. You're basically documenting life as it unfolds, you know. What I loved about many things I loved about Mountain Queen, but was the way that it interweaved this woman's adventures on Everest, her climbing and all that, with her family life, which was difficult, you know, and she had to overcome a lot of obstacles, and her daughters were not convinced, you know, and it was just, you know, she didn't get a lot of breaks, you know, it wasn't like people were making a path for her. She was just punching through and nothing would stop her. And that was really. That was really incredible. You're kind of like that yourself, Lucy. [00:59:47] Lucy Walker: I don't know. Maybe that's why I like these films about inspiring people, is I feel like. [00:59:52] Dennis McKenna: I know it can't. I mean, you can't have the production and the productivity that you've had without overcoming a lot of obstacles. So that's really admirable. You're a figure for other aspiring filmmakers, man or woman, to emulate, because you're one of these people that just does it, you know, I don't care that it's hard. Just hell with that. We're going to do it and you did it. That's fantastic. [01:00:29] Lucy Walker: That's the same with you, isn't it? I feel like. Isn't that with you. I feel like you take on, really. You take on the things that you think are the most important, no matter if they're hard or, you know, like take a lifetime, you know. But I feel like you're someone who's just devoted, you know, your intelligence and resources to really learning about the world in a really, really complete way. Right. I feel like you've really. I mean, how do you. How do you describe what you do, may I ask? I mean, how do you describe how big picture your sort of. [01:01:12] Dennis McKenna: Oh, I have been. I've gotten a lot of breaks in a certain sense, you know, and in the breaks in sense of meeting the right people at the right time that have been able to help me advance my career, for instance, different mentors that I've had at my graduate studies, these people show up and, you know, I never had ambition to become a tenured professor or an academic, although most of my colleagues went that. I just pursued what was interesting, you know, and I let that be my continuing carrot, let that draw me along. And in the course of that, I did get academic, you know, I did get some academic standing. I never was a tenured professor, but I didn't really aspire to it. I had opportunities to study what I wanted to. Lucky breaks, you know, for example, you know, I just. As a trivial example, after I did my graduate work on Ayahuasca, you know, which I published in 1984, I got a letter from a guy at NIH, a scientist at NIH. And this was when you didn't send a text or anything, you actually got a postcard requesting a reprint. And I got this postcard from this neuroscientist at NIH in the department of National Institute of Mental Health actually requesting my paper on ayahuasca. And I recognized his name because he had published a paper with another famous neuroscientist called Julius Axelrod on endogenous DMT and synthesis of DMT in the brain of rabbits or something. So I recognized this guy's name, I sent him a paper and I enclosed a letter and I said, well, I'm interested in learning. I'm a botanist basically, but I'm interested in learning science, learning neuroscience. Would you be able to take me on as a postdoc, you know. And he wrote back and he said, well, as a matter of fact, there is this program you can apply for which is a pharmacology research associate traineeship, the Pratt Fellowship for people who are outside of the field of neuroscience but want to get into it. Apply for this program and I'll make sure that you do or I'll try to get you into it. He didn't promise, but he said this would be a good program. So I applied for that and I got it and I ended up going to NIMH for two years, which was really amazing. And that was my, that was my detour into neuroscience, you know, and that, that whole long, long winded narrative is just an example of a lucky break. I got a lucky break and I didn't really. And as it turned out, later I learned that this gentleman who had invited me had actually been on an expedition to the Amazon with Neil Towers, Dr. Neil Towers, who was my supervisor at UBC, the famous or infamous RV Alpha Helix expedition to the Amazon in 1979. So Neil may have nudged things along a little bit or sent this guy a note and said he was my student. But anyway, I ended up there and that was, that was just one of those things. I've had breaks like that. I've been very lucky in that respect. So, you know, and I feel like I haven't really worked that hard for it. It's just, you know, I've had breaks, you know, unlike somebody like Lhakpa, who had to make her own, you know. And you yourself, you're very much a person that sees a path, and if there's a path, you go down it. And if there isn't a path, you get your machete out and you make a path. [01:05:34] Lucy Walker: Not always. It can be tricky. But I will say when Lhakpa, she's so smart and so curious about the world, but she wasn't allowed to go to school. And my luck, I look back so much, you know, about the luck I had, that not only was I smart, but my dad sort of believed in educating girls. And he'd been on a scholarship at a good school himself, but he'd never been to college. Nobody in my family had been to college before. So it wasn't like I came from this fabulous, fabulously educated family, not at all. But my dad really was supportive, and I sort of was really fascinated by what I was learning at school, was able to get a scholarship and kind of kept sort of jumping around to better and better schools. So I went up at the arguably the best high school in the uk. I then went to Oxford, which was completely free, you know, where I studied without, like, thinking, worrying about what I was going to do later, just in terms of what I was interested in. It was all free at that time. In fact, the government gave you a living stipend. And then I was able to get a Fulbright scholarship to go to NYU for film school. And I was just. Last week, I think NYU Film school was sort of like rated number one film school. And Oxford, which is where I studied for my BA, MA, and then I went to NYU for my MFA, but Oxford was, for the ninth year running, rated number one university in the world or something like that. And I thought, what a privilege, you know, because I had amazing teachers and amazing fellow students and. And that was, for me, the training and opportunity I had that, say, Lhakpa, who wasn't allowed to go to, like, elementary school, she didn't learn. She had to carry little brother to school. I mean, the privilege of my life that I got to exercise these fascinations and exactly like you, you know, if I had to say one thing about my whole life's journey, it's just I've had. I've been able to sort of freely pursue or be sort of paid, sort of eke out a living just pursuing what I'm interested in, you know? [01:07:54] Dennis McKenna: Right, right. [01:07:55] Lucy Walker: Nothing I find more interesting than learning about psychedelics. But for me, that's something that I've been able to turn into my profession, you know, and so that's kind of what you do. What do you say? I'm going to quote you on that. The continuing carrot of just pursuing what I find the most. I think that's. [01:08:20] Dennis McKenna: Or comes up that you're interested in. [01:08:21] Lucy Walker: Yeah, isn't it? I always think the secret to doing our best work is to be intrinsically motivated. There's no amount of money or like. [01:08:28] Dennis McKenna: Right, right. [01:08:29] Lucy Walker: Parents that are quite as will get your, you know, brain naturally whirring away at something in, in a way that actually lets it solve and do good work. I think nothing will get your brain like whirring away in the shower or wherever you go, like, and keeping on, just like keeping on turning things over in your mind and finding your new creative approaches to doing some work that you think is valuable. Like nothing will do that as much as being intrinsically just fascinated and passionately curious. Absolutely the gas in my tank. [01:09:06] Dennis McKenna: I think curiosity is what drives discovery. I mean very much so in a person's life and in science and in all human endeavors that are worthwhile. It's the curiosity that drives. [01:09:21] Lucy Walker: And I love it as well. There's a great, I think it's in a poem. What's that great Patterson, William Carlos Williams poem. Something like a line says, A dissonance in the valence of uranium led to the discovery. Dissonance, (if you're interested), leads to discovery. And this idea in there that it's sort of like this sort of wait, that's weird, kind of thing often drives sort of discovery. Like, like Howard, Lotsof thinking like, wait, why am I not craving heroin after not having a fix for like 24 hours? Like wait, what? And that sort of. And then I think, I don't know if that rings true of any of your work, but sort of. What is this ayahuasca stuff? You know, what are these things? Wait, that is. That, that is really important, that experience I just had drinking ayahuasca or whatever you tell me for you. The first time I experienced a flood dose of ibogaine, I just thought what is this most fascinating experience? Like I just have to like learn everything I possibly can about this because I've never experienced anything that's, that seems more important. That just surprises me because it just shouldn't be like this, you know, and that kind of dissonant thing. Does that ring true of any of your discoveries? [01:10:47] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, it is, It's the. Well, two things. It's the curiosity that drives it, the accidental discoveries that you're. That are unexpected. And all through all that, it's been the mentors. I think mentorship has been very important and probably for you as well. The colleagues that you have met, the people you've been able to work with that are inspiring and that you encourage you. If it hadn't been for. I've worked for all sorts of. As a student and graduate student, I worked for all sorts of different research supervisors. And so some of them were real jerks, you know, but they were still inspiring in some ways. I mean, I was working with them. I was. As human beings, they sometimes weren't so hot, but they were. They were good scientists. Others were both excellent human beings and good scientists. Those are the ones that I treasure the most. I treasure my master's degree supervisor Sandy Siegel at Hawaii at University of Hawaii, and Neil Towers at UBC. These were my masters and PhD supervisors. And they were fantastic people and wonderful scientists. So they were really inspirational for me. Well, Lucy, we've had a wonderful conversation. Is there anything we didn't say that we should. We're about somewhat over an hour here. [01:12:21] Lucy Walker: No, I mean, I think the only thing I could possibly add would be the biggest. Thank you. Because your work is such a light and it is just, you know, I sort of pinched myself and I am such a. Like, I must be doing something right if I'm sitting here chatting to you. It really is, like, lights me up that we get to meet and talk. And I just. I'm so aware of all the beautiful, you know, energy that you bring to all the work and community that you hold. And it's just a great, great gift in my life that I've come up with you. So thank you. [01:13:11] Dennis McKenna: So thank you. Thank you for being part of it. Well, I. You're in the middle of your career. I'm toward the end of my career, but I look forward to exploring the work you've done now that I'm aware of it. And I'm looking forward to whatever you bring out of the hopper in the future. It's going to be amazing. So anything I can do to just make people aware of it, I'm here for you. People need to know about you and your work, so maybe this podcast will be a small part of that. [01:13:50] Lucy Walker: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. [01:13:52] Dennis McKenna: Thank you. Bye. Bye. [Outro] Join our mission to harmonize with the natural world, support the McKenna Academy by donating today. Thank you for listening to Brainforest Café with Dennis McKenna. Find us online at McKenna.Academy.